Why the Time is Now for Utilizing Social Customer Data

Social customer data is among the most promising parts of the buzz surrounding Big Data. For today’s digital and social media marketer, few things are as exciting as getting great data that teaches them new insights about their customers. But making sense of this of this data can be a challenge. (For tips, download our new guide, The Marketer’s Guide to Social Customer Data.)

With almost 80% of marketers planning to apply more social customer data to drive marketing campaigns in other channels in 2013, having a plan to use social data is becoming imperative for marketers.

“Content is king” has been the common mantra in social media. While interesting content continues to be the fuel behind engaging social programs, focusing on relevancy is key to taking that engagement to a higher level. The space has seen a trend in the number of personalization options available to social media marketers, ranging from post targeting for Facebook Pages and LinkedIn Company pages to more robust features for serving more relevant ads to people on Facebook.

By capturing and delving into the findings social customer data can reveal, you will be better able to understand what content is most relevant for your community so that you can tailor your messaging more skillfully.

Data-driven marketing is now a requirement.
With the ubiquity of digital marketing, which generates massive amounts of data, using this data has prompted campaigns, products, ad spend – nearly every part of the marketing landscape – to be supported and informed by data. Social media is no different. Almost half of CMOs have used social data to make predictions or forecasts. Roughly 90% have said social data also influences their decisions.

Social is moving out of the silo – and its data should, too.
The trend toward social business, where social media touches every part of the enterprise, requires that social teams do not operate in a marketing or public relations bubble. By unlocking findings about your social customers and then intertwining that data with data from other parts of marketing and the enterprise as a whole, you can free your social customer data from silos, too.

How can you do more to harness your social customer data?
The above is an excerpt from Shoutlet’s new guide, The Marketer’s Guide to Social Customer Data. Download the guide to learn more about this type of data and ways to start putting it to work for your brand.